I agree, this was my first thought. They screwed up big time, it would be fun to see the federal government investigate them for unlicensed human research.
The issue is clear; if a doctor or psychologist tried this, they would have to get IRB approval. You need informed consent; such laws were passed after psychologists had tried a LOT of experiments on the unwitting public; simluating muggings, imminent death scenarios, etc.
I know people say "it's just manipulating feeds, what's the harm?" There can be plenty of harm if you manipulate the feeds. Where is the line? What if facebook had decided to see what happens if you try showing depressing posts and bad news for a year? Or a feed where you were always ignored? No IRB would allow something like that if it risked permanent mental scarring or created a suicide risk.
Bad move, Facebook. Experiments are definitely cool (I'm a researcher), but we go through proper channels and regulation for a darned good reason.
A holographic doctor is not the same as the tired storyline where there's a holodeck malfunction and the artifical characters threaten the ship. At least with The Doctor they had him grow and develop and mature and be like Data with more personality.
Oh great, now the government will overcompensate by making the search logic even fuzzier, generating far more false positives. Is your name one letter off from someone on the No-Fly list? You're not going to be allowed to fly either. It was bad enough when the TSA was grounding flights when 8-month-olds matched the name of a terrorist, now you're going to have way more of that.
Don't believe me? After the Underwear Bomber was caught in 2009, Homeland Security decided to prevent it from happening again, by drastically increasing the No-Fly lists and broadening it to encompass flights to Canada and Mexico.
Yes, we live in a world where everyone has access to google. That's not the point, you have to prove your claims with evidence, not ask the other person to do it for you and then disprove it. You need to show proof that it can be done, because you can't disprove a negative.
Bill, we've been over this before. Snowden tried the legal channels, informing his superiors 10x, and got nowhere. If you bothered to closely follow the story, you'd see your suggestions were tried and failed.
Armchair critics are stupid. "Why couldn't Rosa Parks just ask the bus driver for permission, did she really need to get arrested?"
Compare how the US responded to similar actions in Iran; the president held press conferences and pressed the issue at the UN and got Europe to agree to sanctions. With Bahrain, no action was taken; the implication being that protesters' livesans democracy are worth less than navy parking spaces.
US-made tanks sold to Saudi stormed into Bahrain and crushed the protests. The US government decided that was not enough reason to deny further sales.
Current US foreign policy is not "do nothing." The US government backed the Bahraini dictatorship and looked the other way as their police fired on pro-democracy protestors and refused to sanction the government despite its documented use of torture and human rights abuses. Why? Because the Bahraini king allowed the US Navy to park its ships there. The US government approved the sale of weapons to the Saudi dictatorship that human rights groups warned would be used on protestors and for torture (e.g. selling huge shipments of cattle prods to the Saudi government even though they don't have many cows). It's creating a whole generation of people who dislike America, despite the fact that the US was quite popular up until recently.
Citation needed. Sex outside of marriage is referred to as "Zina" in Saudi Arabia, which is not a capital offense. Adultery is a subset of sex crime law, and is punished by flogging if unmarried, only married people qualify for capital punishment for adultery..
Being raped is not a capital crime in Saudi Arabia. The myth of that got out when a married woman claimed she was raped, and since there wasn't enough evidence to prove it, the prosecutor decided to charge her with adultery. It's screwed up and Muslims around the world protested the case, but they're a US-backed dictatorship and that's that.
And where were they when Bush was caught doing this in 2005? They voted to legalize it after Bush was caught doing it.
It's still illegal, but seeing them suddenly complain about it reeks of partisanship. (That also goes for the left, where people like Bill Maher suddenly think it's a necessity if Obama does it and not Bush).
Amazing how people frequently bash Muslims, Asians, and Arabs in the UK and nothing happens (even full EDL and BNP rallies in the street), yet an anti-Semitic tweet is cause for arrest. Both are disgusting, but either legalize or ban both.
The No-Fly list does not allow the person on chartered private flights, and it even denies a person from flying overseas into Canada or Mexico. There are even reports that DHS will go further and attempt to block a person from taking a ship into the US as well, US citizen or not.
The US DID intern Arab-Americans in the week after 9/11, in mass roundups and arrests, and almost all of them were later released without charge nor apology. Then the government began a series of interrogations, fingerprinting, and in many cases deportation proceedings in 2002 for thousands of Arab and Muslim green card holders and immigrant families.
Incorrect. Iran winds up using a lot of its oil for domestic purposes, when it could export it at a higher profit. They're trying to maximize the returns.
And there are several reasons they are pursuing nuclear power, not just the oil. Part of it is to help bolster it's desire to lead the region in STEM, since they've been trying for decades to show their technological advancement (and they have good engineering), as well as their technological independence. Another part of it is so that they could achieve nuclear latency, or the Japan Option; if threatened with war, they could convert their civilian nuclear power program into a functional nuclear weapons program in a matter of months as a response. (Better than Israel currently threatening them with nuclear attack and the US military literally on both east and west borders of the country)
Google is "troubled" but I doubt they will raise a much bigger fuss than that. Why? Because they are competing for government contracts against Microsoft and other vendors for Cloud services etc. So while this deeply undermines the company, they probably won't get too loud about it until it starts to wreck their reputation too severely.
Slashdot Mirror
but obeying laws is a PAIN. We're an online company! Waaah
Now that IS very interesting. I wonder how the IRB approved an experiment that clearly didn't have any participants' consent.
I agree, this was my first thought. They screwed up big time, it would be fun to see the federal government investigate them for unlicensed human research.
I don't know anyone who was affected by the Tuskeegee syphilis study, but that doesn't mean it was right or we shouldn't be outraged.
The issue is clear; if a doctor or psychologist tried this, they would have to get IRB approval. You need informed consent; such laws were passed after psychologists had tried a LOT of experiments on the unwitting public; simluating muggings, imminent death scenarios, etc.
I know people say "it's just manipulating feeds, what's the harm?" There can be plenty of harm if you manipulate the feeds. Where is the line? What if facebook had decided to see what happens if you try showing depressing posts and bad news for a year? Or a feed where you were always ignored? No IRB would allow something like that if it risked permanent mental scarring or created a suicide risk.
Bad move, Facebook. Experiments are definitely cool (I'm a researcher), but we go through proper channels and regulation for a darned good reason.
A holographic doctor is not the same as the tired storyline where there's a holodeck malfunction and the artifical characters threaten the ship. At least with The Doctor they had him grow and develop and mature and be like Data with more personality.
Does nobody remember 2005? Yahoo Video and Google Video competed with YouTube, it was not uncommon to see videos cross-posted on more than one.
Oh great, now the government will overcompensate by making the search logic even fuzzier, generating far more false positives. Is your name one letter off from someone on the No-Fly list? You're not going to be allowed to fly either. It was bad enough when the TSA was grounding flights when 8-month-olds matched the name of a terrorist, now you're going to have way more of that.
Don't believe me? After the Underwear Bomber was caught in 2009, Homeland Security decided to prevent it from happening again, by drastically increasing the No-Fly lists and broadening it to encompass flights to Canada and Mexico.
Yes, we live in a world where everyone has access to google. That's not the point, you have to prove your claims with evidence, not ask the other person to do it for you and then disprove it. You need to show proof that it can be done, because you can't disprove a negative.
Bill, we've been over this before. Snowden tried the legal channels, informing his superiors 10x, and got nowhere. If you bothered to closely follow the story, you'd see your suggestions were tried and failed.
Armchair critics are stupid. "Why couldn't Rosa Parks just ask the bus driver for permission, did she really need to get arrested?"
Compare how the US responded to similar actions in Iran; the president held press conferences and pressed the issue at the UN and got Europe to agree to sanctions. With Bahrain, no action was taken; the implication being that protesters' livesans democracy are worth less than navy parking spaces.
US-made tanks sold to Saudi stormed into Bahrain and crushed the protests. The US government decided that was not enough reason to deny further sales.
Current US foreign policy is not "do nothing." The US government backed the Bahraini dictatorship and looked the other way as their police fired on pro-democracy protestors and refused to sanction the government despite its documented use of torture and human rights abuses. Why? Because the Bahraini king allowed the US Navy to park its ships there. The US government approved the sale of weapons to the Saudi dictatorship that human rights groups warned would be used on protestors and for torture (e.g. selling huge shipments of cattle prods to the Saudi government even though they don't have many cows). It's creating a whole generation of people who dislike America, despite the fact that the US was quite popular up until recently.
Citation needed. Sex outside of marriage is referred to as "Zina" in Saudi Arabia, which is not a capital offense. Adultery is a subset of sex crime law, and is punished by flogging if unmarried, only married people qualify for capital punishment for adultery..
Being raped is not a capital crime in Saudi Arabia. The myth of that got out when a married woman claimed she was raped, and since there wasn't enough evidence to prove it, the prosecutor decided to charge her with adultery. It's screwed up and Muslims around the world protested the case, but they're a US-backed dictatorship and that's that.
What would have been a better way to deal with this? Send in a warning and watch it be ignored?
This is the same with Google Hangouts, WhatsApp, BBM, and all the rest. At least I can copy my iPhone's messages to a PC and archive them.
Apple's security documents show just how secure it actually is, with iMessage using public key cryptography. Are we going to also complain that PGP locks you in too now?
Once you claim "it's only metadata," then you open the floodgates for all abuse.
I don't see an incentive for them to use Bitcoin over US dollars or some other established currency.
And where were they when Bush was caught doing this in 2005? They voted to legalize it after Bush was caught doing it.
It's still illegal, but seeing them suddenly complain about it reeks of partisanship. (That also goes for the left, where people like Bill Maher suddenly think it's a necessity if Obama does it and not Bush).
Amazing how people frequently bash Muslims, Asians, and Arabs in the UK and nothing happens (even full EDL and BNP rallies in the street), yet an anti-Semitic tweet is cause for arrest. Both are disgusting, but either legalize or ban both.
The No-Fly list does not allow the person on chartered private flights, and it even denies a person from flying overseas into Canada or Mexico. There are even reports that DHS will go further and attempt to block a person from taking a ship into the US as well, US citizen or not.
The US DID intern Arab-Americans in the week after 9/11, in mass roundups and arrests, and almost all of them were later released without charge nor apology. Then the government began a series of interrogations, fingerprinting, and in many cases deportation proceedings in 2002 for thousands of Arab and Muslim green card holders and immigrant families.
Therefore, they don't NEED nuclear.
Incorrect. Iran winds up using a lot of its oil for domestic purposes, when it could export it at a higher profit. They're trying to maximize the returns.
And there are several reasons they are pursuing nuclear power, not just the oil. Part of it is to help bolster it's desire to lead the region in STEM, since they've been trying for decades to show their technological advancement (and they have good engineering), as well as their technological independence. Another part of it is so that they could achieve nuclear latency, or the Japan Option; if threatened with war, they could convert their civilian nuclear power program into a functional nuclear weapons program in a matter of months as a response. (Better than Israel currently threatening them with nuclear attack and the US military literally on both east and west borders of the country)
Google is "troubled" but I doubt they will raise a much bigger fuss than that. Why? Because they are competing for government contracts against Microsoft and other vendors for Cloud services etc. So while this deeply undermines the company, they probably won't get too loud about it until it starts to wreck their reputation too severely.
I beg to differ. Much of Apollo 13 was filmed while in the "Vomit Comet" to shoot freefall scenes.